


Allmen and the Christmas Spirit

by tentaclemonster



Category: Allmen Series - Martin Suter
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Spendthrift/Penny Pincher Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21884677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tentaclemonster/pseuds/tentaclemonster
Summary: Carlos doesn’t want to exchange gifts during his and Allmen’s first Christmas together as a couple, causing Allmen to struggle to figure out a way to celebrate the holiday.
Relationships: Johann Friedrich von Allmen/Carlos Santiago de Leon
Kudos: 1





	Allmen and the Christmas Spirit

Johann Friedrich von Allmen was not a particularly difficult man to please.

This was a fact that Allmen, himself, was entirely aware of: that a good mattress covered in clean pillows and soft sheets, a bottle of fine wine, a homemade meal, a check in the seven figure range made out to his name or – better yet – a briefcase full of cash with no names attached whatsoever were the simplest of things that Allmen could (and did, as often as he could) find extreme enjoyment in.

It stood to reason, then, that during the holidays Allmen’s easy pleasure also made for an easy shopping experience for the people in his life who felt either the social pressure or genuine desire to buy him a gift.

Allmen was not a difficult man to please and so therefore he was also not a difficult man to shop for.

Allmen could not, in fact, recall ever receiving a gift that he hadn’t liked. He was the sort of man who was as happy to get a humble pair of argyle socks as he was to get a priceless work of art that may or may not have been legally obtained, because Allmen was one of the few people in the world who genuinely believed that it was the thought that counted and that a person close to him putting thought into giving him a gift was a gift in and of itself – the value of the actual present, all wrapped up in gaudy paper and ribbons and bows, was only an extra bonus on top of that.

But while this affability of Allmen’s was one of his more endearing qualities, it also came with a drawback – because while Allmen may have been an easy man to shop for, he found it anything but easy to shop for someone else.

This had caused Allmen all sorts of trouble in his personal life back when he was still valiantly trying to buy just the right sort of gifts that fit the personalities of the people he was buying them for. Shopping for them had been a chore – a thing shopping for himself never was – an event that often lasted for the worst part of a day and mostly ended in him going home empty handed.

By the time he thought he’d finally found the perfect gift and dutifully given it to the friend or lover it was meant for, he had already failed in his quest because these gifts were almost always met with the same sort of look on the giftee’s face: perplexion, confusion, surprise of a not pleasantly so variety. A sort of small smiled, furrowed brow expression followed by a polite but stilted word of appreciation that Allmen could tell was forced and that made him deflate with all the force of a balloon stabbed viciously on the head with a sewing needle who then had its latex insides butchered with a steak knife once it fell to the floor for good measure.

Allmen did not know people as well as he thought he did – or, at least, he knew people well but didn’t realize for a very long time that just because a person’s personality was this way or that, that didn’t always translate into meaning they’d like a gift that would match it. A quiet person might not like a quiet gift, like a book or a scarf, they might like a set of drums or a neon colored dress instead, and while a person might be rather boisterous in their manner, they might receive a set of drums or a neon dress with all the enthusiasm that one would receive a pair of shoes two sizes too small or a sexually transmitted disease and would certainly have preferred to have received something as enjoyable as a good book or a warm scarf to wrap around their neck in the winter months.

Eventually, Allmen wised up to this reality.

Eventually, Allmen learned to stop trying to find the perfect gift and simply buy the thing people actually wanted – the expensive one.

Women were invariably pleased with jewels that sparkled in the light, men with watches that shined under the sun, and people of either gender who didn’t wear jewelry always reacted well to a bottle of wine that could boast being from a limited batch or a famous vineyard.

Of course, Allmen had once had to buy a gift for someone who didn’t wear jewelry and who was also a recovering alcoholic of twenty seven years, and he’d struggled with that. He inevitably gave the person a pair of cashmere socks that were as soft as anything he’d ever touched and received a response of the mildest enthusiasm from the recipient. Allmen counted that one as a draw and was thankful he’d never had to buy that particular person anything ever again, as they had been arrested for a robbery of a museum in Vienna shortly after Christmas and weren’t allowed to receive correspondence from anyone but family members and law enforcement in the prison they were sent to after their trial. Allmen, selfishly, sometimes hoped they were never released. To have to try to find the right gift a second time was not an experience he wished to suffer.

Other than that small hiccup, however, this method of gift buying had served Allmen well throughout the years and he could breathe a sigh of relief at how little effort it required.

But then there was Carlos and Allmen found his breathing wasn’t quite so easy after all.

*

Buying gifts for Carlos was easier when he was just an employee, before he and Allmen became involved on a much more intimate level.

Not being a person prone to wearing jewelry and thankfully not an alcoholic, Allmen almost always gifted the man with a bottle of wine, forgoing the usual skinny and shiny metallic-colored gift bag he put other bottles destined for other people in (as Carlos wasn’t the sort to appreciate non-essential bits of frillery) and only wrapping a small gold ribbon around the neck that was tied in a fetching bow instead (as Allmen wasn’t the sort who could go totally without frills in any sort of endeavor).

Carlos received this gift the same way every time: with a genuine insistence that Allmen shouldn’t have that was tinged with increasing amounts of resignation that Allmen would do whatever he wanted regardless of how much Carlos politely protested, followed by a small begrudging smile and a thanks.

Carlos would also always gift Allmen with the same thing in turn following his own receival: a dinner of coq au vin, Allmen’s favorite meal, most likely made from the same bottle of wine Allmen had given him.

Allmen, delighted with this every time, refused to acknowledge that it was a rather clever form of regifting (or ungifting, rather) on Carlos’ part. As part of that refusal, he also pointedly ignored that he never actually saw Carlos drink a glass of the wine himself and that Carlos always demurred when Allmen invited him to share the meal he’d made, because to do this would be to transport Allmen back to his days of being a poor gift giver who left a trail of disappointment and confusion in his wake and would make Carlos feel unbearably uncomfortable if he thought that Allmen thought that he was being ungrateful of what Allmen had given him.

Like in many other instances in life, a mutual dedication to denial was the kindest option for everyone involved.

Also like in many other instances in life was the fact that circumstances often changed because the feelings of the people involved and the status of their relationships with one another had changed.

When a friend became a lover or a lover a former lover or a former lover an enemy, one could not continue going about things with them the same way they had been all along. A mutual dedication to denial might be a kind option, but a one-sided dedication to it never was – nor was it a very intelligent option, either.

Allmen’s relationship with Carlos had changed, first from master and manservant to friends and then from friends to lovers.

For Allmen, this change came perhaps more naturally than it should have for a man who had only ever been with women before; the gradual flow from one state to the other was as simple as a paper boat floating gently down a stream on a clear summer’s day.

It was surprising, of course, for Allmen to find that he felt for Carlos as more than an employee and then more than a friend but that surprise was fleeting.

It did not paralyze Allmen.

Allmen was not the kind of man who became paralyzed in the face of realizing who or what he wanted, but the kind of man who simply got what he wanted and enjoyed it and let nothing get between him and that goal. That Carlos was the first man he’d been with did not sour that enjoyment, but sharpened it, the way first experiences with a thing one would grow to love were often the most enjoyable ones.

For Carlos, though, this change was more difficult in ways that had nothing to do with gender or orientation but the positions that Allmen and he served in each others’ lives.

Carlos was a true professional and as such, he liked to keep his professional boundaries strict and clear. The change from Allmen being his employer to his friend was one he fought (not viciously or violently but in that gentle, enduring, internal way of his) not because he disliked Allmen or would dislike being his friend but because that was what the rules of propriety dictated he should do.

Convincing himself that it was okay for him to be Allmen’s friend was a trial.

Convincing himself it was okay to make the change from friends to lovers was no less of one.

Most of that convincing took the form of reconfiguring the boundaries between them, because no matter what they were to each other, there had to be boundaries. Carlos would not have it any other way and while Allmen did not particularly care for boundaries of any sort, to put it mildly, he also recognized that other people did and whenever possible, he endeavored to respect them. It was only polite to do so.

And for Carlos, most of his boundaries for them as lovers were not so different from the boundaries they had as employer and employee or even as friends – Carlos liked routine and he liked his work and he liked for Allmen to respect that routine and not make too much of an intrusion into it during his working hours, lest he end up not completing that work in a timely manner (an unforgivable sin as far as Carlos was concerned, even if Allmen – the one who he was doing this work for – was much more lackadaisical about it).

Conversely, Carlos did not like extravagance. He did not like extravagance showered over him personally. And he especially did not want Allmen to be the one doing the showering whether Allmen was a boss or a friend or a lover. Perhaps especially not when Allmen was a friend or a lover.

As the intimacy in their relationship increased, so too did these boundaries become more firm, but meanwhile other boundaries lessened or fell away entirely – Carlos didn’t think an employer and employee should dine together or that an employee should intrude on their employer’s time any more than necessary (no matter how much that employer, meaning Allmen, might ask them to), but friends could do these things and so could lovers. As those boundaries disappeared, Carlos and Allmen naturally started to spend more time together – time together than Carlos didn’t try to escape from the way he often did when Allmen was only his boss.

Because of that time together – and the fact that things were, aside from all the new the intimacy of a romantic relationship, pretty much the same between them as they always were – Allmen was fine with all of this. He was happy and Carlos was happy and Carlos was happy with him which made Allmen all the happier.

It was then that tragedy struck in the form of one horrible, no good, very bad day that was swiftly approaching.

That day being Christmas.

That tragedy being that it was just weeks away and Allmen hadn’t a clue what to get Carlos.

Allmen generally rather enjoyed Christmas because how could a man like him not enjoy a holiday that revolved around the shameless spending of money, both by him and on his behalf by others?

The difference this year was that Allmen was with Carlos and his little hack into buying gifts for others that had served him so well for many Christmases before would not work for him now – Carlos did not wear jewelry and a bottle of wine was no longer an option, because Allmen could not in good conscious gift a lover the same thing he’d gifted them when they were his only his friend.

To Allmen, a step up in the status of a relationship required a step up in gifts. To do anything else seemed to slight his lover, to denote a lack of care, even though Allmen knew Carlos – the lover in question – would not agree with that logic in the least bit.

Unfortunately, Allmen was not as in denial as he might have wanted to be and was well aware that Carlos had only ever begrudgingly accepted that horribly expensive wine in the first place and only likely accepted it at all because he could use it for something that he’d give straight to Allmen, thereby rebuffing the gift without making it seem like he was.

To try to step up from there and buy something even more extravagant was then the same as to step off of a platform when he had a hangman’s noose around his neck – Carlos would have a conniption over being bought something so pricey and Allmen would likely end up spending Christmas alone.

As though all of that were not bad enough, an additional tragedy presented itself to Allmen in the form of another boundary that Carlos drew in place for their romantic relationship. A boundary that had not been present when they were only employer and employee whatsoever, most likely because Carlos didn’t think it was his place to set such a limit on a boss who insisted on drowning him in wine he didn’t actually want and had no plans on personally drinking.

Now that Allmen was a lover, however –

“No gifts?” Allmen repeated Carlos’ request, entirely aghast. “Are you saying you don’t want us to exchange Christmas gifts at all?”

Carlos, a solemn and slightly worried sort of look on his face, nodded. “Si, Don John. No gifts.”

“Not even a bottle of wine?” asked Allmen who had zero intention of being so insulting as to give Carlos the same old bottle of wine at all in the first place.

“No.”

For a moment, Allmen thought he was having a stroke. Being denied the joy of spending money had that affect on him.

He wanted to insist, he wanted to argue, but – Carlos was looking at him in a hopeful sort of way. Hopeful but resigned as though he knew Allmen would argue and it would be like a line drawn in the sand between them. The most stark difference between them – Carlos’ thriftiness and Allmen’s habit of bleeding money like a cut to an artery – come to light, a light that their intimate relationship could not survive being shined on.

And Allmen very much wanted their intimate relationship to survive.

He wanted it more, he realized, than he wanted to spend horribly indecent amounts of money on himself or anyone else – something that, for Allmen, was entirely extraordinary.

Still, though, the thought of a Christmas without gifts…

“But how will we have a good Christmas?” he asked. His voice sounded deflated and lost. It was the same sort of voice a small child might have when asking, what do you mean Santa isn’t real?

Carlos smiled at Allmen and put a hand on his shoulder to give it a squeeze of reassurance. “No hay razon para parecer triste. I know it goes against everything in you, but we can have a good Christmas without spending a lot of money on it. Al menos trata. For me, Johann.”

The use of his given name shocked Allmen, so unused as he was to hearing it from Carlos’ lips – though, for that matter, had he ever heard it? Allmen didn’t think so, this would be a first – but it wasn’t a bad sort of shock. It was a pleasant one. He thought he rather liked it.

“Alright, then, I’ll try,” Allmen said, and then just as the look of relieved pleasure was beginning on Carlos’ face, added, “But for Valentine’s Day, I want us to do things my way, yes? That’s fair, isn’t it?”

The grimace that cut through the expression of relief on Carlos’ face didn’t seem to think it was fair, the man already knowing that Allmen’s way was likely going to be incredibly over the top – not to mention incredibly expensive – but Carlos let out a small, startled laugh despite it. That laugh was like the slow pour of honey from a jar given sound. It was a laugh that Allmen never tired of hearing.

“Si, eso seuna justo,” Carlos agreed with the begrudging amusement of a man who knew he was making a choice he would later regret but didn’t have the heart to refuse to make. He gave Allmen’s shoulder another squeeze, before the hand slid down Allmen’s arm in a slow, gentle caress that made shivers run up Allmen’s skin underneath the fabric of his shirt.

The look in Carlos’ eyes matched the touch and Allmen knew instantly he’d made the right choice in agreeing with Carlos’ no gifts agreement without (much of) a fuss.

Now if only he could figure out what on Earth they’d be doing for Christmas instead, he’d be in business.

*

Of course, figuring out what to do for Christmas was easier said than done considering that a fair bit of the holiday revolved around spending money on things you then gave to other people.

When taking that act of buying and giving out of the equation, Allmen – whose primary pleasures in life almost all revolved around buying something for someone, that someone usually being himself – struggled to come up with what was left.

Naturally, Allmen went to Carlos with this conundrum as he did with most of the conundrums he had which he thought was fair in this instance considering that Carlos was the source of this conundrum in particular.

“El dinero no lo es todo,” Carlos said, and Allmen was thankful he only sounded matter of fact about it rather than chiding. “Many people have no money to buy gifts with during this time of year – not for themselves or even their children. They have to find other ways to make the day special. They enjoy what they already have and the time they spend together. Familia y amor. When you take all the frantic spending away, you find out what the spirit of Christmas is really about.”

All this was said earnestly and from the wistful look on Carlos’ face, Allmen was sure he was thinking of past Christmases he’d celebrated and apparently quite enjoyed.

Christmases that, Allmen was also sure, were not much like the ones Allmen had had himself over the years even though he too had always enjoyed the holiday.

That realization did something to Allmen, something he wasn’t sure he liked.

Because Allmen was not used to feeling like he was lacking in experiences.

He would, in fact, consider himself to be rather rich in them even during times when he was not so rich in the monetary sense of the word. And yet, that wistfulness from Carlos made Allmen feel like he lacked some kind of experience now.

Allmen had certainly had quite a love affair with frantic spending himself, especially during the holidays, and only now did he realize that perhaps he’d missed out on some special, vital part of Christmas because of it. ‘The spirit of Christmas’ as Carlos called it.

Allmen went back to the drawing board.

He wracked his brain, interrogated himself, and delved deep into the pulpy grey matter of his memory, back to his childhood when Christmas was a thing he’d enjoyed waking up to but whose planning had fallen only on his parents’ shoulders.

Allmen’s upbringing had not been as financially strapped as Carlos’ had, but neither had it been what one could call wealthy and his parents never made a habit of throwing their money around the way Allmen would grow up to so enjoy doing himself. Christmas was an occasion of joy in their family but it was not so joyous because it was heavy in expense, that Allmen could remember clearly.

It was these thoughts and the memories that came with it that drew Allmen’s attention and allowed it to finally narrow in, that he turned over in his mind until finally like a light bulb going off over his head, Allmen had what he thought was a perfectly brilliant idea for what he could give Carlos for Christmas that wouldn’t require him to spend a thing.

He only had to wait until Carlos was out one day in order to implement it.

*

The look on Carlos’ face when he walked into the greenhouse library was one of such surprise that Allmen felt the need to pre-emptively (and somewhat defensively) say, “I didn’t buy any of this.”

The this in question being the large artificial Christmas tree that sat in a corner of the room, its dark green branches slightly askew although Allmen had tried his best to straighten them out before Carlos arrived so that it would look a bit more naturally tree like. A bright red circular velvet dress was on the floor beneath it that dutifully hid the plastic base that the fake tree grew from, and on the library desk Allmen had cleared everything so that the cardboard boxes that had no print or writing on any of them that might let the casual observer know what they were could be stacked on top.

Carlos, who now observed all this but did not look so casual about doing so, was so visibly curious that Allmen felt a certain jolt of pleasure at having caught him so off guard.

Carlos, of course, knew of Allmen’s spending habits and so Allmen didn’t blame him for being somewhat cautious despite his pre-emptive (and, in hindsight, suspiciously defensive) denial of having bought the things that now filled the room.

Carlos took a few steps towards the desk and with great hesitation placed a hand on one of the boxes – a hand that immediately pulled back so that Carlos could rub his index and middle finger in circles against his thumb, his eyes squinting at whatever was there.

Dust, Allmen assumed. Just like he’d tried to straighten out the tree, he’d also tried to clean the dust off the boxes as well with the same sort of varied results.

“What is this?” Carlos asked. He looked at Allmen as though he were afraid of the answer.

“I was thinking about what you said, about how we should enjoy Christmas with what we already had, and then I remembered --” Allmen gestured with a hand at the boxes. “ – I remembered that I still had almost all of my family’s things in storage. I hadn’t thought about it in years, but I knew I had Christmas things in there from my parents, my childhood, and I checked and I found all of this.”

Carlos cast a glance over in the corner. “Even the tree?”

Allmen smiled ruefully. “It’s the same one I had every year growing up. I always badgered my father about getting a real one, but my mother wouldn’t have it. She didn’t like the thought of killing a tree just so we could look at it for a few days and then throw it out. Found it wasteful. We never had anything but that plastic one and she took good care of it so we’d never have to buy another. After awhile I stopped asking for a real one, this one became part of our tradition. It would’ve felt like throwing away our memories to get rid of it.”

Carlos looked charmed at the story and also horribly impressed at that bit of thriftiness on Allmen’s mother’s part, the exact reaction Allmen hoped he’d have.

Allmen could see the caution melt off of Carlos like butter down a slice of hot toast and he allowed a little relief to sink into his own bones as well – relief at, Allmen hoped, actually getting this thing right.

“And the boxes?” Carlos asked, and his hand went back to the top of one, teasing at the slit between the two closed flaps of cardboard that kept him from looking in. He wanted to open it, Allmen could tell, but Carlos was entirely too polite to do such a thing without permission.

“Ornaments, stockings, some candles too, I think.” An unfamiliar self-consciousness rose within Allmen then. He hesitated then added, “I peeked in so I think everything is alright, but it’s all been in storage for so long so there’s a lot of dust and dirt and I know you don’t like --”

“No, no, no,” Carlos interrupted and rushed to walk over to Allmen, to put both hands on Allmen’s shoulders in a firm grip, and Allmen – who was more shocked at the interruption, something Carlos had never done, than the touch – found his mouth snapping shut automatically. “No, don’t apologize. We can clean up the dust. El polvo no es nada. This is all just –“

Carlos paused and Allmen held his breath, waited.

“-- wonderful,” Carlos finished, smiling widely, and Allmen allowed himself to exhale. “It’s wonderful, Don John.”

“I did good?” Allmen still felt the need to ask.

Carlos’ smile widened and he moved in to press his lips to Allmen’s mouth, giving him a quick but heartfelt kiss that made Allmen’s pulse jump in his chest.

Carlos pulled back with a small laugh and nodded with delight. “Yes, you did.”

Allmen beamed back and gave a laugh filled with delight of his own. “Well – good! That’s good! I thought we could decorate the tree together, you know? We’ll need to fix the branches more but mmmph –“

Carlos pressed forward and put his lips on Allmen again, interrupting him for the second time of the night (a new record) and this time there was nothing quick about it. As his tongue pushed past Allmen’s lips and into his mouth, Allmen mentally postponed decorating the tree until tomorrow.

It seemed they would be spending their evening doing something much more physically taxing instead.


End file.
